On our last excursion around Kyoto was a day trip to Kanazawa and Tojinbo Cliffs. These two places were such beautiful destinations, and encompassed some of the sweetest surprises and highlights of our trip. I have to tip my hat to my husband, since this trip required more navigation than usual of the local trains in order to arrive to each location on time. The only regret we had was not spending a day in each city, so we hope to one day visit these cities again!

Kenroku-en Garden

Named as one of the Three Great Gardens of Japan, Kenroku-en is a spacious park where visitors experience a sense of seclusion and antiquity. Through meticulous planning, the park's appearance changes during each season and offers different feelings of beauty. After visiting many cities saturated with cherry blossoms, we were pleasantly surprised to see plum blossoms at the park since the weather in Kanazawa was still relatively cold. The punchy, vibrant flowers accented the park with a warm introduction of spring. We highly recommend visiting Shiguretei, the tea house located in the park, to enjoy a tea ceremony and have an exclusive view of the park.

Higashi Chaya District

Similar to Kyoto's Gion district, Higashi Chaya District maintains its traditional charm with its narrow streets, tea houses, and water canals. It was a treat seeing a wedding couple having their portraits done there. Dressed in embellished kimonos, the couple made it hard not to resist sneaking a photo of them!

Tojinbo Cliffs

Located in Fukui Prefecture, Tojinbo Cliffs is a breathtaking site of basaltic cliffs that spans about one kilometer long. We learned after we visited that the shape of these rock formations is extremely rare, and Tojinbo Cliffs is one in three places in the world that share the same columnar joints. Getting there was quite an adventure, since it involved going back onto the Shinkansen and taking several local trains in order to arrive to the city. After two hours of train rides and a short hike up, we were taken aback by the its beauty, not to mention catching everything at golden hour! One thing that stuck out to us during our walk there was how quiet the city was. We hardly saw anyone on the street, and we had to use our broken Japanese to navigate our way to the cliffs. We loved the sense of quietness and solitude as we walked back to the returning train in the evening. For dinner, we highly recommend Echizen, which forever changed the way we saw soba.